LIBERATED REGION 001
Vexaan Draal had made his name as a Fetcher by being very good at getting things.
The Shi'an worlds all ran on power, and it was his job to find it. As a boy, he'd listened with hungry awe to stories of Fetchers traversing the Astral, seeking loose spirit energy to harvest. Raw power was sold to the highest bidder for their reality-bending reactors.
The Caretakers had recruited him young. Ancient Shi'an tasked with safeguarding the Multiverse for all eternity—which really meant controlling it. They were simply the largest and strongest military power in existence by several orders of magnitude.
This dominance was rooted in their very nature: Shi'an lacked natural lifespans. They were the antithesis of life itself—death incarnate. Mortals often called him "undead," but that wasn't accurate. To be undead, one first had to live, then die. A process utterly alien to the Shi'an. Destruction was possible, but not death.
And now, Vexaan feared he might meet exactly that fate.
He had returned to the Liberated Region with failure in tow.
The Nihilarch had given him a monumental task: fetch what they called a . An exceedingly rare, dense soul, untouched by the stain of mana. One could seed grains of powerful aspects into such a soul, harvesting them upon the host's conveniently imminent death.
The soul would become a potent cosmic battery made of sentient suffering.
But something had gone catastrophically wrong.
Now he stared at his reflection in the polished metal doors of the lift carrying him to judgment. His mirrored image stared back—stark white skin contrasted by blue, undulating fractals that writhed like living tattoos. Gazing into his own pale, pupil-less eyes, Vexaan ran a hand over his bald skull, then massaged the sharp ears sitting high on his head.
He tried to draw calm from the elevator's utter silence.
The doors slid open with barely a whisper.
Vexaan gathered what little resolve he had left merely to exist in the Nihilarch's presence.
He stepped into a vast chamber whose walls seemed made of oil-slick, light-devouring shadow. The blackened, riveted metal throne dominating the room's center looked like it had been carved from a collapsed star. No guards flanked it—the Nihilarch needed none. If any being believed they could challenge him, he would welcome the attempt.
Above, the ceiling displayed projections of myriad stars and planets, wheeling in alien orbits, periodically descending for the enthroned figure's examination. Entire solar systems reduced to toys.
The oppressive silence finally shattered when Vexaan spoke.
"Nihilarch Zaal," he began, voice barely disturbing the heavy air, "this one has failed your mission and throws himself upon your mercy."
He prostrated himself, pressing his form as low as physically possible against the cold stone.
The moment Zaal's gaze fell upon him, Vexaan's entire existence compressed into a singularity. Reality fractured, dissolving into the infinite void. Weightless, he found himself adrift in absolute nothingness.
"Do you know why the space between worlds is a vacuum?"
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Zaal's voice resonated from everywhere and nowhere at once. Vexaan tried to reply, to form a plea or apology, but no sound could escape—the vacuum was absolute.
"When the Forsaken Ones succeeded in their coup," Zaal continued, tone echoing with an ancient authority that made galaxies tremble, "the Old Gods of Death and Space decreed it thus before their annihilation. Only we, the chosen Shi'an, may traverse the Multiverse freely. Its protection—its very stability against the void—falls to us, Fetcher Vexaan Draal."
The weight of cosmic responsibility crushed down on him like the birth of a universe.
"And your failure in this sacred duty has been noted."
Vexaan braced for agony beyond comprehension. None came. Instead, the crushing void receded, and he found himself sprawled on the throne room floor like discarded refuse.
"However," Zaal's voice now emanated directly from the throne—amused, almost pleased, "you have also mitigated your failure."
Vexaan dared not lift his head. Every instinct screamed against meeting that gaze. Instead, shimmering projections of worlds materialized in the air before him, each one a masterpiece of cosmic surveillance.
"We expected the ambush," Zaal explained with casual omniscience. "Your desperate shot through the veil, though mis-aimed at your true target, found purchase. You destroyed the husk of a dead realm, inviting the void to consume it. As we observed, this localized incursion allowed our Oracles to trace the ripples."
The projections spun faster, hypnotic and terrifying.
"The worlds you now see are the calculated loci of active void-events connected to that moment. My Catalyst is within one of them. You will scour each and every one until it is found."
A task that could consume lifetimes. Yet if this was penance over destruction, Vexaan would embrace it.
As he studied the projected worlds, committing their ethereal forms to memory, a brilliant golden flash suddenly erupted from one sphere. The ripple of light spread through the chamber, accompanied by a loud, resonant chime that made reality itself ring like a struck bell.
Zaal chuckled—a deep, regal sound that somehow contained the laughter of dying stars. The golden light briefly illuminated his shadowed form, and Vexaan quickly averted his gaze, terrified of accidental eye contact.
Zaal rose with fluid grace. The multitude of projected worlds spun away, ascending back toward the cosmic display, leaving only the single, radiant sphere. It expanded to fill the space between them like a newborn sun.
"Well now," Zaal mused, a hint of genuine amusement threading his voice. "There is my Catalyst. On a Precursor world, no less. We should have expected such a development."
Vexaan examined the glowing projection and coordinates materializing beside it. The destination was appallingly distant. Precursor worlds—remnants of a bygone cosmic age—were typically deemed too insignificant to warrant Caretaker attention.
Forgotten corners where monsters flourished.
"It must be him," Zaal declared, new excitement threading his tone like electricity. "He always had a peculiar fondness for these forgotten corners of existence. Who else possesses the audacity—and the power—to snatch a soul from under our very watch?"
The question hung in the air like a blade. Surely the Nihilarch wasn't expecting an answer? The entity that had assaulted him in the Astral was power so overwhelming that Vexaan's counter-attack had been pure, desperate reflex. That he'd struck the realm harboring the Catalyst was nothing short of cosmic luck.
"Nihilarch," Vexaan ventured, curiosity finally overcoming terror, "this one begs understanding. Who possesses such power?"
Suddenly, he was staring directly into pale blue, pupil-less eyes.
Zaal was before him—when had he moved? ? The Nihilarch's opalescent skin shuddered with vibrant blue and crimson fractals that made reality itself thrum like a struck tuning fork. A wicked grin stretched across his features, a sight that sent waves of primal dread through Vexaan's immortal existence.
The name that fell from Zaal's lips hit like the collapse of a universe.
"Gaius Valerian was your opponent in the Astral."
The golden sphere pulsed brighter, as if the very mention of that name sent ripples through dimensional barriers.
Gaius Valerian. The name that made Nihilarchs pause. He, who had once stood against the entire Caretaker Armada and won. The only mortal in recorded history to make the Shi'an .
And in that moment, Vexaan understood why he had been so utterly overwhelmed. Why his desperate counter-attack had felt like throwing pebbles at a waterfall.
Gaius Valerian had been the one that ripped the Catalyst right from his grasp with his impossible golden runes.
But a fresh horror crept into his consciousness, far worse than his own failure.
"Nihilarch," he whispered, voice barely a breath, "what manner of soul would the Sovereign of Serenity want to protect?"
Zaal's grin widened, showing teeth like obsidian razors. "The kind that could reshape the Multiverse, Fetcher Vexaan Draal. The kind that makes even the memory of gods take notice."
Again, the golden sphere pulsed; Vexaan glimpsed something within its radiance for just an instant: a young, humanoid figure wielding impossible light.
This Catalyst wasn't just any soul.
He was Gaius Valerian's successor.
